If you are looking for a cinematic masterpiece to rival Citizen Kane , go watch The Suicide Squad (2021).
Watch the opening sequence of Suicide Squad XXX . It is shot in a warehouse. But Braun uses colored gels—purples, deep reds, and that specific greasy green—to replicate the industrial grunge of Midway City. The props are custom made. The "June Moone" transformation into Enchantress actually uses practical eye effects.
4 out of 5 baseball bats. 🦇
It is, for lack of a better term, to be a parody. It exists in the uncanny valley between blockbuster and backyard production. The Narrative: A Parody That Respects the Lore Spoilers for a 7-year-old adult film: The plot revolves around the Squad being sent to retrieve a hard drive from a corrupt politician. Standard stuff. But the genius lies in the interactions .
The "adult" scenes are framed as character beats. Harley seduces a guard to get keys (trope, but fun). Katana’s sequence is shot like a surreal dream. It never feels like the plot stops for the action; the action is the plot. In 2021, James Gunn released The Suicide Squad —a bloody, hilarious, R-rated masterpiece. In a lot of ways, Gunn did what Braun attempted five years earlier: he let the freaks be freaks. suicide squad axel braun parody
The Axel Braun parody stands as a time capsule of the "Dark Universe" aesthetic. It’s a reminder that during the peak of the DCEU’s grimdark phase, the only people who truly understood how to make these characters look cool and sexy were working in a genre that can’t be advertised on a billboard.
Known to mainstream audiences as "the guy who won a bunch of AVN Awards," and to cinephiles as "the Scorsese of smut," Braun has a specific superpower: treating parody movies with the reverence of a period drama. So when he turned his lens on Suicide Squad , he didn’t just make a dirty movie. He made a commentary. If you are looking for a cinematic masterpiece
By the time Suicide Squad dropped, Braun had already conquered the superhero genre with Batman XXX and Superman vs. Spider-Man XXX . He knew that a parody only lands if the audience buys the illusion first. The sex is the reward; the impersonation is the plot.